Mizoram excise officials seize 98 kg of pangolin scales, was ‘being passed off as smoked pork’

One person driving a cab from Shillong to Aizawl with the haul was arrested at checkpoint in Mizoram’s Kolasib district, it's learnt. Pangolins are protected under Wild Life Protection Act.

Officials claim 98 kg of pangolin scales were impounded | By special arrangement

Aizawl: Mizoram’s state excise and narcotics department Tuesday seized a massive consignment of illegally smuggled pangolin scales on the Mizoram-Assam border, ThePrint has learnt. The contraband weighing 98 kg was allegedly being passed off as “smoked pork”.

According to officials, one person driving a cab from Shillong to Aizawl was arrested with the haul at a checkpoint in Vairengte, a town in Mizoram’s Kolasib district. The driver, identified by the officials as Daniala from Assam’s Cachar district, has allegedly revealed during questioning that he was handed the parcel at a taxi counter at Happy Valley in Meghalaya’s Shillong and was asked to drop it off at another cab counter in Aizawl.

The driver quoted the sender as claiming that the parcel contained smoked pork, officials said.

This comes less than a month after World Pangolin Day, observed around the globe on the third Saturday of every February.

Pangolins, also known as scaly anteaters, are protected under Schedule I of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, and their trade and smuggling are punishable offences.

While releasing its findings called ‘India’s pangolin buried in illegal wildlife trade’ ahead of World Pangolin Day last year, Merwyn Fernandes, India coordinator of the wildlife trade monitoring site TRAFFIC, said that the country reports “a significant number of pangolin trafficking incidents reflected by seizures across the country”.

“They are poached mainly for international markets in China and Southeast Asia for their scales, which are used as an ingredient in traditional medicines and are believed to cure various ailments. Pangolin meat is also considered a delicacy and consumed for its alleged medicinal properties,” he said.

In 2019, the International Union for Conservation of Nature listed the Indian Pangolin as ‘endangered’ in its ‘Red List of Threatened Species’ while the Chinese pangolin and the Sunda pangolin were assessed to be ‘critically endangered’.

Mizoram excise officials said that the impounded scales have now been handed over to the forest department.